Women of the Country | Page 7

of about forty-three, with a basket on one
arm and walking with a strong stick, came steadily towards the door.
She would have been comely if it had not been for a fixed frown which
seemed odd on her pleasant, good-tempered face. She wore a print
bodice, with a point back and front, and a short bunchy stuff skirt.
Though Sarah was well in sight she took no notice of her, but walked
straight on towards her, until the latter said with evident pleasure--

"It's you, Mary!"
"Yes!" answered Mary, with a slight start.
"How are you?"
"Quite well," said Sarah. "Here's the door." She laid her hand over that
of the other woman and set it on the side of the post, at the same time
taking her basket, which was full of eggs, and only partially covered by
a cloth.
"How many?" she asked. "Have you counted?"
"Four dozen," replied Mary. "Have you finished your butter?"
"It's coming," said Anne, taking the handle again.
"Let me try," said Mary. "I often think I could manage butter nicely."
"Don't get too clever," said Anne. "You do a wonderful lot already.
Stop and sit a bit, won't you? Let me see if you know where your chair
is."
The woman stepped into the dairy, turned to the left of the door, and sat
down without hesitation in the chair which Sarah had moved on first
perceiving her approach, and as she did so one could see that the frown,
so out of place on her steady and tranquil face, had an origin of tragedy.
She was blind.
CHAPTER V
Mary Colton was one of the most esteemed women possible in any
country-side. She had scarcely been beyond the few miles which
surrounded her home, and since she was a girl had never set foot in a
train. She had not been born blind, but had had her sight until she was
seventeen, when an illness darkened the world for ever. "A pretty girl
she was too," said those who remembered. Of the prettiness she
retained now only the essence, that of her pleasant goodness, yet her

appearance was still attractive in spite of her thick figure and contracted
brows. She had not that unearthly exalted expression so familiar to one
in the blind, who look upwards for the light and search in vain. Rather,
unless one looked narrowly, one would take her for a middle-aged
woman of good health and steady temper, who was a little short-sighted.
She used a stick out of doors, and when she went very long distances
she took with her a small terrier, which warned her of the difficult parts
of the road. But indoors she moved about freely, knowing to an inch
how much room each piece of furniture occupied, and seldom knocking
against anything as she moved about her work.
She lived entirely alone and supported herself, not by any of the special
kinds of work which are supposed generally to be possible to the blind,
but by exactly the same means as other women of her age and class. All
the work in the house was done by herself, even to the making of the
toffee and bulls'-eyes, which she sold at the cricket-matches and fairs of
the districts. She kept hens and turkeys, and worked in her garden,
feeling her way about the beds and bushes with her feet. She sold the
vegetables and the currants and gooseberries which grew in the little
patch of garden, and her friend, Anne Hilton, carried her eggs to the
market-town for her every week, where she disposed of them to a
provision-dealer of the same denomination. Even the hen-run had been
made by the blind woman, who was a continual source of astonishment
and questioning from the neighbours. But in this wonder, she not
unnaturally found a pathetic pleasure.
"How do you know when you've got all your hens in?" asked a child
once.
"I count them at night when they're asleep on their perches," answered
Mary, with a joyful little chuckle.
"But it's dark!" objected the child.
"So it is," replied Mary. "I didn't think of that."
She never referred to her blindness, and so complete a victory over
misfortune and circumstance gained its fit respect in the country. No

one considered that it was "doing a charity" to Mary to drive past her
cottage on the way from market to give her news of a football match or
fair about to be held in the district. Women would send their children
on their way to school to give similar news, and the boy who brought
her the roll of newspapers, which she sold at the station every morning,
would often wheel her barrow for her. She had a large, clumsy chest on
the frame of